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Sunday, December 12, 2010

All That Glitters Is Gold

Gold bars are displayed during a photo opportunity at the Ginza Tanaka store in Tokyo (Photo:
REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao)

All that glitters is gold. While the housing markets collapse, the stock market stutters and the world’s economy is waiting for the next dip the price of gold is marching onwards and upwards. People are taking their money out of bonds, stocks and blue chip companies and pouring it into that shiny metal made by Mother Nature. During the last 5 years (Oct 05 – Oct 10) the price of gold has moved from $450 an ounce to $1350 and ounce. An almost 300% rise. If you need money forget about selling your shares, just pawn your wife’s wedding ring.

A woman touches a 220 kg (485 pounds) gold bar, worth around $7.9 million at today's price, on display at the Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park in Taipei County (Photo: REUTERS/Nicky Loh)

A gold miner shows a gold amalgam at an artisanal mining in Abangares, north of San Jose. Costa Rica is pushing to legalize a 600 informal miners of small-scale miners who scrape out tiny amounts of gold from abandoned mine shafts using dangerous and polluting techniques. (Photo: REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate)

A shopkeeper inspects gold bars before putting them on sale in Bangkok's Chinatown. (Photo: REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang)

Two trays of gold powders at different stages of refining are pictured at a Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo factory in Kanagawa prefecture. The factory produces gold bars and gold products for industrial and commercial use, and recycles gold from old products such as jewellery and industrial scrap. (Photo: REUTERS/Michael Caronna)

A mold for forming gold bars is kept at high-temperature in an oven at a Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo factory in Kanagawa prefecture. (REUTERS/Michael Caronna)

An ingot of highly pure gold is pictured at a Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo factory in Kanagawa prefecture. (Photo: REUTERS/Michael Caronna)

Gold bars are displayed at South Africa's Rand Refinery in Germiston. A blistering rally in gold prices has sparked a new gold rush in South Africa as mining firms seek to exploit a huge stash of underground gold hidden deeper than humans have ever dug before.The rocketing prices have transformed the aging gold industry of South Africa, the world's largest producer, from merely struggling to survive into splashing out hundreds of millions of dollars on expansion projects. (Photo: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko)

A shopkeeper picks up a gold chain for a customer to try in Bangkok's Chinatown. (Photo: REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang)

Molten gold, recycled from components of mobile phones and other discarded electronic items, is poured into a mould at a recycling plant in Honjo, north of Tokyo. (Photo: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao)